Brush stain over gel stain

I am trying to darken up the stain on a cherry wine rack that I am working on right now. The first two coats are a gel stain, the first coat was blotchy so I lightly sanded it off and added a second gel stain coat. I would like to put a final coat on but avoid the gel stain if possible. If the stain is darker than the previous coats will the two stains bond together or will it not finish correctly?

4 replies so far

When you brush it on top, the solvent in the stain will take up some of the previous gel stain coat…assuming they are both oil-based with mineral spirits for a solvent.

A few approaches…

1.) Use a water-based stain or water/alcohol dye on top.2.) Get a can of spray shellac (which will be dewaxed) and seal the gel satin first. Then, use anything you want.3.) Spray a stain on top…it’s the brushing or rubbing that can mess up the undercoat.4.) Brush the oil stain on top, but with a light hand, not stopping to fix the work. (Bad choice, but it can be done).

If it were me, I would seal with shellac and then figure a way to spray the stain…perhaps with an aerosol with the color you favor. After that, spray with one more coat of shellac and then brush on your choice of film finish.

When sealing with shellac, it doesn’t take much…just a uniform thin coat that will dry in like 15 minutes.

BTW, one of the most frustrating aspects of finishing is taking a pigment stain, like that gel stain, and wiping or brushing on anything on top that uses the same solvent…whether this is another stain or a film coat doesn’t matter. Shellac is wonderful for sealing between each transition.

Test everything on a practice board first. Try it without the shellac and watch the rag pull up the dried undercoat, smearing it all around. It’s not pretty. :)

Yeah, something like a wine rack could be artsy-fartsied up a little bit. Definitely experiment. But if this were a cherry table or something, you’d want it uniform and pretty. Of course, with a cherry table, it would have been a crime to put gel stain on it.